Lot Essay
Driven by an inner urge, Biren De's personal and artistic evolution has followed a long, unbroken thread, leading to tantra consciousness. His works are not abstract in the conventional sense as they are linked to strains in Indian metaphysics. Through his work he has initiated a movement known as Neo-Tantra.
From the early 1950's Biren De's stylised figures became more and more abstracted. His figures became disembodied shapes of colour and light, which were increasingly reduced to two major forms, the U-shaped for the feminine,and straight and wedge-like for the masculine. 'By 1963 these symbols are shorn of their eroticism to translate into almost scientific hieroglyphs painted on a monumental scale to fill the space of the canvas. Texture is mostly abandoned for smokey-thin applications of colour. The colour is vibrant and rich with large areas of black or 'dark' and occasional areas of blue, purple and green.' (J. Appasamy, Biren De: A Journey. As Seen by Five Contemporaries, New Delhi, 1972.)
From the early 1950's Biren De's stylised figures became more and more abstracted. His figures became disembodied shapes of colour and light, which were increasingly reduced to two major forms, the U-shaped for the feminine,and straight and wedge-like for the masculine. 'By 1963 these symbols are shorn of their eroticism to translate into almost scientific hieroglyphs painted on a monumental scale to fill the space of the canvas. Texture is mostly abandoned for smokey-thin applications of colour. The colour is vibrant and rich with large areas of black or 'dark' and occasional areas of blue, purple and green.' (J. Appasamy, Biren De: A Journey. As Seen by Five Contemporaries, New Delhi, 1972.)